Point Poker

17-03-2021 by

Planning poker, also called Scrum poker, is a consensus-based, gamified technique for estimating, mostly used to estimate effort or relative size of development goals in software development. In planning poker, members of the group make estimates by playing numbered cards face-down to the table, instead of speaking them aloud. The cards are revealed, and the estimates are then discussed. By hiding the figures in this way, the group can avoid the cognitive bias of anchoring, where the first number spoken aloud sets a precedent for subsequent estimates.

Planning poker is a variation of the Wideband delphi method. It is most commonly used in agile software development, in particular in Scrum and Extreme Programming.

The method was first defined and named by James Grenning in 2002[1] and later popularized by Mike Cohn in the book Agile Estimating and Planning,[2] whose company trade marked the term [3] and a digital online tool.[4]

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Process[edit]

Rationale[edit]

The reason to use planning poker is to avoid the influence of the other participants. If a number is spoken, it can sound like a suggestion and influence the other participants' sizing. Planning poker should force people to think independently and propose their numbers simultaneously. This is accomplished by requiring that all participants show their card at the same time.

Equipment[edit]

Planning poker is based on a list of features to be delivered, several copies of a deck of cards and optionally, an egg timer that can be used to limit time spent in discussion of each item.

The feature list, often a list of user stories, describes some software that needs to be developed.

The cards in the deck have numbers on them. A typical deck has cards showing the Fibonacci sequence including a zero: 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89; other decks use similar progressions with a fixed ratio between each value such as 1, 2, 4, 8, etc.

The reason for using the Fibonacci sequence instead of simply doubling each subsequent value is because estimating a task as exactly double the effort as another task is misleadingly precise. A task which is about twice as much effort as a 5, has to be evaluated as either a bit less than double (8) or a bit more than double (13).

Several commercially available decks use the sequence: 0, ½, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100, and optionally a ? (unsure), an infinity symbol (this task cannot be completed) and a coffee cup (I need a break, and I will make the rest of the team coffee). The reason for not exactly following the Fibonacci sequence after 13 is because someone once said to Mike Cohn 'You must be very certain to have estimated that task as 21 instead of 20.' Using numbers with only a single digit of precision (except for 13) indicates the uncertainty in the estimation. Some organizations[which?] use standard playing cards of Ace, 2, 3, 5, 8 and king. Where king means: 'this item is too big or too complicated to estimate'. 'Throwing a king' ends discussion of the item for the current sprint.

Smartphones allow developers to use mobile apps instead of physical card decks. When teams are not in the same geographical locations, collaborative software can be used as replacement for physical cards.

Procedure[edit]

At the estimation meeting, each estimator is given one deck of the cards. All decks have identical sets of cards in them.

The meeting proceeds as follows:

Point Poker
  • A Moderator, who will not play, chairs the meeting.
  • The Product Owner provides a short overview of one user story to be estimated. The team is given an opportunity to ask questions and discuss to clarify assumptions and risks. A summary of the discussion is recorded, e.g. by the Moderator.
  • Each individual lays a card face down representing their estimate for the story. Units used vary - they can be days duration, ideal days or story points. During discussion, numbers must not be mentioned at all in relation to feature size to avoid anchoring.
  • Everyone calls their cards simultaneously by turning them over.
  • People with high estimates and low estimates are given a soap box to offer their justification for their estimate and then discussion continues.
  • Repeat the estimation process until a consensus is reached. The developer who was likely to own the deliverable has a large portion of the 'consensus vote', although the Moderator can negotiate the consensus.
  • To ensure that discussion is structured; the Moderator or the Product Owner may at any point turn over the egg timer and when it runs out all discussion must cease and another round of poker is played. The structure in the conversation is re-introduced by the soap boxes.

The cards are numbered as they are to account for the fact that the longer an estimate is, the more uncertainty it contains. Thus, if a developer wants to play a 6 he is forced to reconsider and either work through that some of the perceived uncertainty does not exist and play a 5, or accept a conservative estimate accounting for the uncertainty and play an 8.

Benefits[edit]

A study by Moløkken-Østvold and Haugen[5] reported that planning poker provided accurate estimates of programming task completion time, although estimates by any individual developer who entered a task into the task tracker was just as accurate. Tasks discussed during planning poker rounds took longer to complete than those not discussed and included more code deletions, suggesting that planning poker caused more attention to code quality. Ducky luck casino. Planning poker was considered by the study participants to be effective at facilitating team coordination and discussion of implementation strategies.

See also[edit]

  • Comparison of Scrum software, which generally has support for planning poker, either included or as an optional add-on.

References[edit]

  1. ^'Wingman Software | Planning Poker - The Original Paper'. wingman-sw.com. Retrieved 5 July 2017.
  2. ^Mike Cohn (November 2005). 'Agile Estimating and Planning'. Mountain Goat Software. Retrieved 1 February 2008.
  3. ^'Planning poker - Trademark, Service Mark #3473287'. Trademark Status & Document Retrieval (TSDR). 15 January 2008. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
  4. ^Cohn, Mike. 'Planning Poker Cards: Effective Agile Planning and Estimation'. Mountain Goat Software. Mountain Goat Software. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  5. ^K Moløkken-Østvold, NC Haugen (10–13 April 2007). 'Combining Estimates with Planning Poker—An Empirical Study'. 18th Australian Software Engineering Conference. IEEE: 349–58. doi:10.1109/ASWEC.2007.15. ISBN978-0-7695-2778-9. S2CID11429738.
  • Mike Cohn (2005). Agile Estimating and Planning (1 ed.). Prentice Hall PTR. ISBN978-0-13-147941-8.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Planning_poker&oldid=1005870080'

As you have to know if you are using Scrum for a while in each Sprint Planing you have to estimate what is the size of each user story. You can use T-Shirt or story points to give an estimation per user story.

One of the common activities is to do a planning poker where each team member choose a number to decide the size of user stories. To do that you can use cards with the different sizes but if you have to deal with distributed team members you need to use a virtual planning poker tool such as Pointing Poker.

What is Pointing Poker?

Pointing poker is a online implementation of Planning Poker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_poker). This is a “game” that is used to determine complexity points for teams using the Agile project management methodology. This tool fosters better collaboration and adherence to the core principles associated with planning poker. It is intended to be usable without reading through this documentation, but if you want the details, it’s all here.

Advantages

Widely used
5,836,750 total votes cast.
No download required
This application is 100% web based requiring no installs.
No signup required
This is a spam free zone!
Easy to use
There’s no need to enter your stories, just get connected to your teammates in whatever way you’re used to (phone, skype, etc.) and share the link.
Scalable
Have multiple agile teams that might be interested? No problem, pointing poker can handle any number of teams simultaneously!
Desktop, tablet, and mobile ready
There’s no need for the people on your team to compromise on their preferred platform. The pointing poker tool works in all environments.

How does it work?

The original and continuing goal of this application is to have a simple and focused implementation of planning poker. To that end, the UI has been kept extremely simplistic.

Starting a session

A session must be started before pointing can begin. All players from an agile team join the same session, but before players can join, the session must be started. This is accomplished by one of those players going to the Home page and clicking on the Start Session button. That’s all it takes to get going.

There are a number of options that can be set when starting a new session.

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  • Settings
    The only option here is to reset all of the settings back to their original values.
  • General Options
    This area allows for the configuration of which items are shown on the screen during a pointing session.
  • Point Values
    Many agile teams do not use the point values that are available by default. If your team uses different values, then you can customize the available points in this area.

Joining a session

Whether you’re the one who started the session or a player joining an existing session the first thing you must do is enter your name so other players can see who you are. Once you enter your name you choose to participate in one of two different ways:
  • Player
    This option should generally be used by business analysts, testers, developers, etc. Only players are allowed to vote.
  • Observer
    Observers are only able to see the votes cast by other players and cannot vote themselves. This option should generally be used by the facilitator (Scrum Master) or others who want to view the voting results, but do not have input into the decision.

Inviting other users

Pointing is a team activity so having only one person wouldn’t be much fun. To invite other’s to your pointing session, simply copy the URL at the bottom of the screen or from your address bar. Send that to everyone that you want to participate. This can be done via e-mail, IM, SMS, or whatever communication mechanism you prefer. For your convenience, you may enter email addresses in the input box provided which will send invite emails to everyone listed there. Be assured that this information is not used for any other purpose.
Point Poker

Participating

The goal of a planning poker session is to assign complexity points to stories. This tool uses a realtime communication system to connect players to one another. In general, a meeting faciliatator will introduce the story the team is going to point. The story is described in detail by the business owner who understands the business needs involved. Players then secretly cast their votes for their estimation of the effort. Although votes are hidden from the players, it is obvious who has or has not voted.

Poker Point Cook

When everyone has voted, the results are shown to everyone on the team. Users can continue to submit votes after all votes have been shown until a consensus is acheived. When the team has finished pointing a particular story someone should press the Clear Votes button to clear all points and hide them again. If a user becomes unresponsive the Show Votes button can be used to show all of the current votes without waiting for everyone to cast their votes.

The tool is intended to be very flexible during the pointing session and teams should feel free to use the tool in the manner that best suits the team dynamics. For example, some teams might use it to get an intial feel for where participants are leaning to start a discussion. Other teams might feel that continuing to submit votes until a consensus is reached is more appropriate. The point is, there is no right or wrong way to use it.

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Note: Different Agile teams define points in different ways. The planning poker application tries to use the most standard point values, but if your team has other point values, you are encouraged to reconfigure the points to values that are more meaningful to you and your team. This can be accomplished by the person who starts the pointing session.

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Statistics

The statistics area shows several pieces of information that might help your team improve.

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  • Time Spent:
    This shows the amount of time that was spent determining the current point value or values. The time starts from the moment the Clear Votes button is pressed and ends when the last vote is cast. The time is also updated after each vote even after all votes have been cast.
  • Point Votes:
    This shows the number of votes assigned to each point value. If all votes are the same, then “Consensus” is shown instead of the point values.

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Finishing

When your pointing session is over, you can simply close your web browser or navigate away from the page which will automatically remove you from the session. When all players and observers have left, the session is automatically destroyed.

To conclude, this application can help you and your Scrum team in case you have to work with remote team members. Try it and let me know what was your experience!!

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